Chapter 479 - 476: Stripping Away Fear

Chapter 479: Chapter 476: Stripping Away Fear

As Mo Ling was trapped in the loop of fear...

The stench of corruption grew heavier. Although the gray-green raindrops couldn’t penetrate Xiaozhi’s barrier, they made the air increasingly foul. Li Luo and Zhou Dynasty instinctively covered their mouths and noses.

The bizarre, corrupting totem continued to scatter maggots and dust, showing no signs of stopping.

"Corruption isn’t supposed to have a physical body," Zhou Dynasty said, looking at the totem in confusion. "Why would it form a totem and use maggots and dust to spread itself?"

He squatted down and poked the writhing maggots with a stick.

When the stick crushed a maggot, it burst open, releasing a puff of the same gray-green dust. The dust landed on the ground and spread rapidly, like fungal hyphae.

Zhou Dynasty looked in the direction the maggots were crawling from, then scanned the surrounding area.

’They’re scattering from a central point... They aren’t targeting us. They’re fleeing from a specific spot. There’s something there that’s scaring them.’

"If the Animate Corruption were targeting us, all these maggots would be crawling in our direction, but they aren’t. The thing they’re avoiding... is over there!"

Zhou Dynasty pointed to a nearby clearing. It was completely empty, yet the paths of all the maggots led away from it.

Hearing Zhou Dynasty’s deduction, Li Luo instantly understood. She raised the Holy Sword and swung it toward the clearing.

A golden torrent instantly devoured countless maggots, flooding the empty clearing.

A tremor ran through the space, and within the dazzling golden light, numerous phantoms appeared. Both of them widened their eyes in shock.

Among the phantoms, Zhou Dynasty saw his fallen comrades.

And Li Luo saw a man with a severed arm...

Both of them were stunned. The golden light seemed unable to completely destroy the phantoms. They were struggling to emerge from the torrent.

Just then, a strange edge appeared within the golden light.

Immediately after, a massive cubic boundary enveloped all the phantoms. With a flash of light, they vanished without a trace. The attack even tore a gap in the pillar of light.

Although the gap was quickly filled, the phantoms within were gone.

Li Luo reacted quickly, looking up at the Block.

Meanwhile, Mo Ling, watching the phantoms dissipate from within the Block, let out a sigh of relief.

’Just as I thought. Fear isn’t formless.’

Before he was trapped in the fear loop, Mo Ling had believed he was powerless against the formless Animate Fear.

However, as he teleported repeatedly, the terrifying scenes actually began to glitch.

He discovered that the figures and apparitions meant to terrify him had started to "drop frames"!

The "image quality" grew blurrier and their movements began to "stutter." This told him the Animate Fear had been affected and could no longer maintain the scene.

Mo Ling guessed that his teleportation must have been stripping away parts of the Animate Fear, causing its terrifying constructs to develop all sorts of defects.

’It’s like prying a few cathode-ray tubes out of a monitor. The picture naturally gets blurry. Pry out too many, and you’ll even get blank spots on the screen.’

To patch these holes, the Animate Fear had to rob Peter to pay Paul, which resulted in the "frame drops" and "stuttering."

’In other words, teleporting can actually hurt it.’

To create terror, it had to turn formless fear into tangible scenes, and Mo Ling could strip away those very scenes.

Realizing this, Mo Ling was no longer afraid of being trapped in the fear.

He began to teleport with abandon, stripping away every terrifying image he saw.

Finally, the Animate Fear gave up and kicked Mo Ling out of the loop.

The moment he was out, Mo Ling saw the phantoms within the light of the Holy Sword.

’Can’t even maintain a complete form anymore, huh?’

He immediately delivered the final blow to the Animate Fear.

The instant Mo Ling destroyed the phantoms, the maggots froze as if time had stopped, no longer writhing. In the distance, the totem that had been scattering maggots and dust abruptly ceased all movement.

Then, the maggots on the ground began to mill about in confusion.

The stone pillar beneath the corrupting head suddenly shattered. The surrounding dead trees wilted, and the head itself fell to the ground.

The moment the head touched the ground, all the maggots seemed to find their leader. They converged on the head, lifted it in unison, and carried it away like pallbearers with a coffin, gradually disappearing into the distance.

"It seems they hold no hostility toward us," Li Luo said, surprised, as she watched the corrupting head being carried away.

"In their eyes, humans are very weak ’Animates.’ This forest is full of far more succulent prey, so they won’t waste time attacking us. It was only attacking before because it was being driven by the Animate Fear."

"Then why did the Animate Fear target us?" Li Luo pressed.

Zhou Dynasty shook his head. "Perhaps human fear is just more... delicious."

"Compared to these animated dead things, human experiences are richer, our emotions more complex. The Animate Fear can surely sense the difference. Perhaps, in its eyes, that makes us ideal prey."

"The fear of lesser creatures is, of course, not as delectable as the fear of a human."

Li Luo grew thoughtful as she listened to Zhou Dynasty’s theory.

"So it seems that as the Animate corruption deepens, the Animates themselves become more selective with their prey."

Zhou Dynasty nodded in agreement. "Of course. The higher the intelligence, the more discerning the palate. A wild beast is content with any meat it can find, but humans consider aroma, texture, a balance of meat and vegetables..."

"It’s the same for these Animates. As their intelligence grows, and assuming food is plentiful, they’ll start choosing tastier, more suitable meals. They’ll no longer just charge wildly at the first living thing they see."

As he spoke, Zhou Dynasty gazed deeper into the forest, his tone growing grave.

"The intelligence of these Animates is already beyond what we imagined. Tell me, if we go deeper, do you think we’ll encounter Animates that can converse with us? Or even a fully formed Animate civilization?"

Hearing Zhou Dynasty’s question, Li Luo grew worried as well.

"It’s possible. A civilization born in an environment like this would, logically, be incredibly violent, wouldn’t it? If such a thing really exists, it would be extremely dangerous."

With their conversation at an end, both felt a deep sense of unease about the path ahead.

The shadow of the Animate Fear and Animate Corruption had not yet faded, and there could be even more terrifying, more formidable Animates to come.

In the seemingly endless forest, bizarre Animates could be lurking in any unknown corner.

Li Luo was still gazing into the depths of the forest when she suddenly heard a WHOOSHING sound.

She looked up to see Xiaozhi furiously chasing the Block.

With the Animate Corruption gone, Xiaozhi seemed to realize it no longer needed to maintain its protective barrier and had begun attacking the Block instead.

But Mo Ling had anticipated this and was maneuvering the Block in a hasty retreat.

’I refuse to believe you can catch me this time.’ Mo Ling was now dead set on outmaneuvering the stupid bracelet.

Watching this game of cat and mouse, the corners of Li Luo’s mouth turned up slightly.

"Let’s go," she called back to Zhou Dynasty.

Zhou Dynasty paused for a moment, then patted his head and shook off his apprehension.

"Right! What am I spacing out for? Time to move!"

’The road ahead... is still long.’